


udarasthita

by AllegoriesInMediasRes



Series: Ramayana fics [15]
Category: Ramayana - Valmiki
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, Oneshot, implied rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 06:50:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16362968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllegoriesInMediasRes/pseuds/AllegoriesInMediasRes
Summary: Even as a child, the sole prince in the great palace of Kishkindha, cracks of rust begin to spider through Angad’s world.udarasthita (Sanskrit): being in the womb





	udarasthita

Angad has always wanted a sibling.

He has Father and Mother, and Uncle Sugriva and Aunt Ruma, all of them and their love wrapping around him like a giant tail, but even as a child the great palace of Kishkindha looms empty, forbidding to its sole prince. Father praises him and declares that any brother -- or sister -- of his would be just as fine, but there is always another demon to fight, or another issue enveloping the kingdom, and Mother and Father must turn their attention elsewhere. 

Angad would even welcome a cousin, but his aunt and uncle’s nursery remains stubbornly empty. Hearing his aunt’s hushed tears and seeing her press a hand to her flat belly are the first cracks of rust to spider through his world.

Then Father dies, and comes back to life, and dies for good, and Uncle Sugriva is king, and then outcast, and then king again, and Mother and Aunt Ruma pass between Father and Uncle Sugriva like communal cups to be gulped down -- and how they all imbibe wine like it is water, after. After. 

Uncle names him Crown Prince, ostensibly to make reparations for the fatal fraternal fracas that defined Angad’s youth. Angad would laugh, if time had not taught him the value of tact. There will be no more heirs for Kishkindha, not when Mother is too bitter to welcome Uncle Sugriva into her bedchambers, and Aunt Ruma is too broken to ever do so again, even had she not been barren.

(He knows, why Aunt Ruma’s cheeks are sunken, why she drinks before the sun has risen, why she flinches away from her nephew, why she knots and double-knots her pallu obsessively. Angad might have striven to excise the knowledge from his mind, but he knows why Father made her weep so frequently during Uncle’s exile, and it was not because of cruel words or taunts.)

When the cave first had to be sealed and they presumed Father dead, Angad’s imagination had conjured up an eternal prison built of granite and earth, replete with echoey darkness and stale air. Now when he closes his eyes, he still dreams of caves, but instead warm and close and dark, like returning to the enveloping enclosement of the womb. 


End file.
